


One to Stay

by AVirtoMusae



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Bonding, M/M, Mind Meld, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, T'hy'la
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6164018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVirtoMusae/pseuds/AVirtoMusae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Hiss. Scream. Thud. Repeat.</i> When Spock and Jim and the landing party get captured, and Spock and Jim end up bonded by accident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One to Stay

Hiss.

Scream.

Thud.

Repeat.

Jim was sick of it. The landing party had been captured one hour previously. Hiss. Scream. Thud. Repeat. That had been with them, a steady tattoo while they, helpless, waited. Jim was pretty sure he was going to go insane before he got out of this joint. Whether that was to be the result of boredom or worrying about what the fuck might be happening to Spock was the question.

Jim had not learned the actual name of the aliens they were imprisoned by because he was a bit too busy trying not to be taken prisoner and was thus referring to them privately as “Spiny Blue Guys” — which was a step up from “Sonic” in his opinion. What Jim did know was that he wished the Spiny Blue Guys would just fuck off and die in a fire. 

The ensign they had taken first was from security — one of their two security officers they’d brought along. He’d lasted maybe ten minutes tops before the Spiny Blue Guys finished torturing the poor dude to death. Spock so far had lasted five times what that ensign had. So yeah, Jim had a right to be really panicky. 

Hiss. 

Scream.

Thud.

Repeat.

Jim stayed on his feet only for the sake of everyone else — he had to _bestrongbestrongbestrong_. Jim cast a look at the other members of the landing party since they were all being held in the same cell. Hendorff, Bones, and Uhura. When one included Spock, their group comprised most of the Enterprise’s senior staff. It was beginning to dawn on him why Spock always objected thoroughly to the senior staff going on so many away missions.

. . . And now it was looking like Jim was going to lose Spock. Fan-fucking-tastic.

No.

No.

He would not lose Spock.

He would not lose Spock because he would make a plan.

Simple . . . no. Jim thought frantically. Step one: get the hell out of the cage thing. Step two: get Spock away from the Spiny Blue Guys. Great plan — simple, right? Too bad he still couldn’t figure out a way out of the cage thing. He could literally see no doors or windows though the darkness may have played a part in that (He was considering adding “get night vision” to his plan here for all the good it would do him). He’d even felt around the walls, but still nada.

Footsteps — footsteps on the other side of a wall.Creak. Light shone through a growing crack in the wall. A crack or a door, Jim couldn’t tell. The Spiny Blue Guys pushed someone, _Spock!_ , into the cell. Spock trembled and collapsed only seconds after the aliens released him. Jim raced forward and caught him when Spock was already half on the floor.

“Spock? Spock? Hey,” Jim said to the crumpled form cradled in his arms. 

There was a groan, and Spock’s eyes fluttered open to meet Jim’s. 

“You alright, buddy?” Jim asked, voice saturated with concern.

Arm trembling, Spock reached up a hand. Even the darkness, there was a sure question in Spock’s eyes. Jim understood what Spock meant without having to think about it.

“You want to meld with me?” 

A nod.

Jim inhaled sharply. This Spock had never requested to meld with him before.If Jim wished that Spock weren’t injured for that to happen, then that was no one else’s business. “Okay.”

Spock exhaled shakily as his fingers met the skin of Jim’s temple.

“My mind to your mind,” Spock rasped, and Jim mouthed the words with him.

_My thoughts to your thoughts._

And then they were lost.

☉  
☉  
☉

_They were falling . . ._

_. . . falling . . ._

_. . . falling, enveloped by warmth. Comfort. They felt pain, excruciating agony, but here there was warmth, a hope, and the agony was pushed away into the corners of their mind so far that it was nearly nonexistent, a dull ache. But there was the memory of the pain, separated from the pain itself. And it was that memory that Spock brought forward._

Blue . . . the Spiny Blue Guys hurting . . . . Make it stop . Make it stop . . . not talking, not telling information . . . Peace, peace, peace, peace, We come in peace, please, stop, then:

“We’ll get nothing from him.”

And then not hurting them anymore . . . peace . . . wounds bringing no new pain . . . just old pain . . . lingering agony . . . but hope and freedom . . . .

Jim’s face.

_Something golden — warm — snaked around them,looping through their mind, tying them together._

_There was a gasp and suddenly darkness._

☉  
☉  
☉

Jim had woken up in Medbay almost exactly twelve hours later while Spock remained unconscious. Miraculously, Bones had decided to let Jim return to the bridge on “light duty” almost immediately after Jim’d woken up. That had shocked Jim and made him ridiculously happy. He hated not being allowed to be on duty. Jim was dismayed to find that light duty basically meant paperwork.

Paperwork, unfortunately, was always Jim’s least favorite part of being captain of a starship. In all truth, it made watching the paint dry on a wall seem not-at-all tedious. This was also why Jim was basically convinced that Spock got off on doing paperwork. Jim wasn’t nearly as efficient with his paperwork as Spock was, so approximately seven whole hours after being released to “light duty,” Jim had finally finished up all his fucking paperwork. It was lucky that during the last half-hour he’d seemingly gotten a new burst of energy and went so much faster.

He had not yet gotten a comm from Medbay, so Jim decided that he ought to go check on Spock (not that paperwork had been enough of a distraction to keep him from visiting every half an hour). Jim was aware that it had been stupid of him not to send a comm down there first, but lo and behold, he wasn’t exactly ruled by the laws of common sense (or really laws of any kind, but what-fucking-ever). So yeah, that meant he ended up hearing some things he was very not meant to hear.

Jim’s cheek rested against the cool metal of the wall. “And you’re sure you’re all right?” That was Uhura’s voice asking the question. He felt a pulse of jealousy.

Jim couldn’t see the expression Spock made in return. “Affirmative.”

“Sure,” Uhura agreed, and boy, did her voice ever drip sarcasm. “You just discovered you have like a sacred bond with —”

“ _T’hy’la_ bond,” Spock interrupted. 

“I know,” Uhura growled, “but sacred describes it too — rare and potent. So you discovered that you’re _telsu_ with the captain, and you say you’re fine?”

“Fine has variable definitions, but affirmative,” Spock confirmed. “While I certainly would not have chosen him of my own will —”

And that was when Jim stopped listening. He couldn’t bear to hear what happened next. He’d heard enough, more than enough even. So Jim and Spock, they had some powerful Vulcan bond thingy, and Spock wouldn’t have wanted it with him. That hurt. Spock probably didn’t even know Jim’d been pining after him for the better part of their five-year mission. Spock wouldn’t have chosen him. Apparently Jim was so disgusting to Spock that Spock wouldn’t even want to try this bond thing out with him.

And Jim shattered.

He couldn’t even notice that Spock’s words suggested almost the exact opposite of what Jim thought they meant. If Jim left Medbay with tears in his eyes, then no one needed to know.

☉  
☉  
☉

“Jim?” Bones’s voice finally made it into Jim’s brain. Jim hadn’t heard it before even though Bones had already been calling said name for a few minutes.

“Yeah?” Jim replied wearily. He turned to look at his friend, who was looking at Jim in concern and not even the barest hint of irritation.

“Sure you’re alright, kid?” Jim felt a hand settle on his shoulder. He cast a look down at the hand, skepticism etched on his features.

Impatiently, as if it were such an obvious answer, he snapped, “I’m fucking fine, okay?!”

Bones’s eyebrows flew up in disbelief.

☉  
☉  
☉

Jim wasn’t fine by any stretch of any meaning of the word. His head throbbed constantly, day and night, night and day. Shadows, purple and puffy and horrible, had taken up residence beneath his eyes. Jim had never been a fat man — Tarsus and Frank and Kodos had seen to that years back — but he was just skin and bone now. He was miserable, and everyone could see it.

They gaved him concerned stares, but they never questioned him anymore. After the first couple people had tried it (poor Bones and Ensign Chekov), everyone had realized he’d just yell if they tried to care about him.

Jim Kirk was a ghost of his former self. 

He was alone.

Even Bones had taken to leaving him alone. And Spock? Spock hadn’t been leaving Jim alone by choice. After the first couple times Spock had tried to offer emotional support over whatever had happened, Jim had taken to avoiding him. Jim had even reprogrammed the ship’s computer so it wouldn’t reveal his location when he was off-shift. And, of course, he juggled the shifts around so he and Spock were never anywhere at the same time.

☉  
☉  
☉

They all should have seen it coming, but somehow, they all missed it.

It really should have been a peaceful mission really. There was no reason for it to be otherwise, but like most of their missions, it ended up going the exact opposite way of what was intended. So basically an uninhabited M-Class planet was somehow out to get them.

Jim grimaced and looked around. The planet had been pretty on the scans they’d taken, but in person, the planet was pretty fucking awful. It might have been the fact that that ensign — Grant maybe? — was sucked down into the depths of an apparently man-eating pit or that some rocks had emitted a bunch of carbon monoxide had killed Lieutenants Hevelin and Kaplan. So yeah, not a nice little planet, which explained why Jim was looking around and standing in front of Sulu and Chekov and Bones, the three remaining members of the landing party. He had to protect them from the giant evil scorpion that had it end for the three of them.

So yeah, it wasn’t like Jim was in a good place, but it wasn’t like he was actually trying to get himself killed. It was just that the monster scorpion wasn’t a fan of Jim’s crew, and Jim wasn’t about to let anything happen to his crew. Jim wasn’t particularly afraid of Mr. Scorpion as he stared it down. That was probably a mixture of adrenaline and faith in Bones’s ability to fix him up. Either way, Jim wasn’t about to question it.

The lack of fear/survival instinct/whatever may have had something to do with why Jim forgot to get out of the way when Scorpiozilla decided to take the opportunity and sting him. A second later, there was the rather noticeable stench of burning scorpion after Chekov fired his phaser at it. Dimly, as the poison made his entire body smart, as Sulu called for an emergency medical beam-up, as Bones tended to him, Jim wondered why simply shooting it hadn’t occurred to him.

But beyond the excruciating pain that caused him to writhe in the dirt, what he felt was someone else’s pain and fear.

He just knew it was Spock.

Jim wasn’t sure why he was feeling Spock’s panic. He hadn’t been able to feel Spock since the meld. God, had his head really been that empty? Perhaps, had his every inch not been in agony, he would have marvelled at how he felt right for the first time in his memory. It was as he was beamed up, as he was still enthralled by the feel of Spock’s mind against his own, that he fell unconscious. His absolute last thought before he fell unconscious was this: “At least Spock won’t have to deal with me being in his head anymore.”

☉  
☉  
☉

“Fuck,” Bones snarled. Jim had just gone unconscious, which meant the scorpion’s venom was particularly fast-acting. He needed to get the captain to Medbay as soon as fucking possible.

Of course, the second they were in the transporter room, Spock was there waiting. Bones was just about ready to tell Spock to get lost when he saw the utterly stricken look on the half-Vulcan’s face. Bones felt almost like a voyeur as Spock slowly shuffled toward Jim and stared at the prone form. “Jim!”

“He’s unconscious, Spock,” Bones drawled unhelpfully. Bones reckoned Spock hated those three words at least as much as Bones himself did.

Bones could have sworn Spock’s jaw tightened and his eyes shuttered against some emotion, “He will survive.”

“Spock,” Bones said. Had it been anyone else, he might have put his hand on the other’s shoulder. Bones abhorred the prospect of anything happening to Jim, God, did he ever. He’d lost his best friend once, and despite the bourbon and not-crying-nope sessions, Bones had brought the man back to life like a fucking necromancer. He’d be fucking damned were he to let the kid die now, but hell, that poison was the fastest moving he’d ever seen in his entire career. “Get the entire science staff analyzing the toxins in his blood,but me we need him in the Medbay ASAP.”

Bones recognized the glint in Spock’s eyes then. Determination. “I will carry him.”

☉  
☉  
☉

“He’s not in any immediate danger,” Bones declared wearily. He wiped sweat from his brow. Relief coursed through his veins. Bones was mildly horrified when he saw the hint of a smile curling Spock’s lips. Spock didn’t ask; he just sat down on Jim’s bed.

☉  
☉  
☉

The first thing Jim said on waking up was something along the lines of “Uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh.” His entire body ached, and the space behind his eyebrows throbbed. Jim being Jim attempted to sit up almost immediately. That was a mistake as the throbbing morphed into an even more stabbing pain, and his stomach decided that it wanted to run away from his body through his mouth. Jim flopped back down and groaned.

“Jim!”

That was Spock’s voice that said his name. Jim was sure that he’d never heard anything so blatantly hopeful. That was a sound he would never have expected to hear from his First Officer — who was looking at him with wide eyes and the hint of a smile?

“Spock?” Jim rasped. He needed a glass of water. Badly. 

As soon as the thought entered his mind, a glass of water was being pressed into his hand. Spock then seemed to realize that Jim might struggle with the glass and guided Jim’s hand, still pressed to the glass, up so Jim could take a sip. Jim would have been thrilled had he not felt a sharp pang when he remembered that no, Spock didn’t want him and that no, Spock didn’t even want to try anything with him.

Spock’s eyes then met Jim’s. “You listened to my conversation with Nyota?”

There was no real way for Jim to deny that, so he didn’t even bother to try. “Yeah.”

“You did not,” Spock corrected, and the smile— for it was nearly an honest-to-God smile — on his face was somewhere between look-how-stupid-this-human-is and exceedingly fond, “listen to all of it.”

“I didn’t?” Jim asked, not daring to believe it. From what he’d heard, those dreadful words that had been festering in his mind, he’d assumed the absolute worst. But now, he just couldn’t let himself hope only to once more be crushed. It’d destroy him.

“You did not,” Spock confirmed. He stared at Jim intently. For a second, Spock looked utterly conflicted as he gazed into Jim’s face. Hesitantly lifting a hand, he requested quietly, “May I show you?”

Jim swallowed. “Yes.”

Spock lifted his hands to Jim’s meld points.

“My mind to your mind,”

_My thoughts to your thoughts._

And again, they fell.

☉  
☉  
☉

“Affirmative,” they agreed, “but while I certainly would not have chosen him of my own will, I find myself gratified that it was he.” Here they paused to do the Vulcan equivalent of a grin. “I —” They broke off, unable to communicate what they felt. They felt too much for words to convey with any modicum of accuracy.

“Spock?” Nyota asked. She placed a hand on their shoulder, but they quickly shrugged it off. “Sorry.”

“It feels right.”

_In the meld, they gasped. There was a teary feeling in them. Joy. That was what it was called. A gasp. A warm sensation spread within them. A hug, a warmth shared across a too-weak link, through the bond, through their mind._

_Bliss and peace._

_Love and adoration._

_Cherishing and cherished._

_Complete, whole, one._

_One._

_They had never known this feeling before. It was utter perfection, the epitome of it. There was no joy but this. There was nothing in existence more perfect, more intimate, than this. To be torn from this would be despair, plain and pure and simple,the destruction of everything good. The bond between them would be the only thing to remain of this feeling, the thing to keep them together and sane. It would be enough but never truly enough. It —_

_Pain._

_It was a shock. Agony._

_Ragged gasps._

_Pain._

_Pain._

_Pain._

_Pain._

_Hiss._

_Scream._

_Throb._

_Repeat._

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☉  
☉

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Bones growled under his breath. The poison had produced an unaccounted for auxiliary poison after the antidote. A self-defense, apparently. Bones ran a hand through his hair, which was already sticking up in so many different places. “Shit!”

“Len, we’re doing everything we can do!” the head nurse exclaimed from behind him. “We’ve sent the samples to Sciences, and we can’t get Spock out of the meld even with M’Benga’s suggestions! All we can do is wait.”

Bones laughed mirthlessly. “Wait?! Chris, we’ve got to do something!”

Chris put her hand on Bones’s shoulder. “We can wait. That’s all.”

“There’s got to be something!” Bones muttered helplessly, shaking off Chris’s hand. 

Chris shook her head. “We wait.”

☉  
☉  
☉

_Frantic._

_Panicking._

_Hurt._

_Then:_

I have lost you once, James Kirk, do not make me lose you again.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by these prompts: [[one]](http://strek-id-kink.livejournal.com/2836.html?thread=1530644#t1530644) [[two]](http://strek-id-kink.livejournal.com/2836.html?thread=969492#t969492). 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed, and feedback is seriously appreciated. =) 
> 
> _Additionally, if anyone would like to look over some stuff I am writing, I am looking for two people to help with some stuff I am writing. I would like to be able to get to know these people a little in addition to having them look at my writing. I need honest opinions about the two stories I have in mind. I need these people to be polite but not to spare my feelings when giving me suggestions._
>
>> A Virto Musae  
> By the Virtue of the Muse


End file.
